The sand of the rubble of Gaza is warm and sharp. The air is impregnated with dust, sweat and gun smoke. The files of men, women and children wind like human rivers towards food distribution centers, the face dug by hunger, the eyes suspended between hope and fear. It is in this scenario that Omar, 23 years old, thinned Palestinian, recalls: «Around 3 in the morning an intense gun fire began. There were shots from the quadcopter, from the apache helicopter, from the tanks, the boats of the Navy and the soldiers. A bullet struck me in a leg. I was constantly bleeding. One of the boys with me tried to get me out. He was hit in the head and died on my chest. We had gone there only for food, just to survive like everyone else ».
His is one of the many voices collected by doctors without borders (MSF) in the report “They are not humanitarian aid but orchestrated killings“, A document that photographs with precision and crudeness the transformation of the distribution centers of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) into” mortal traps “.
A lethal and recurring mechanism
Between 7 June and 24 July 2025, 1,380 wounded from these centers arrived in the MSF clinics of Al-Mawasi and Al-Attar. Twenty -eight were already dead. Seventyula were children, twenty -five under fifteen years. «These are not isolated, but recurring events», Explains Stefano Di Carlo, general manager of MSF Italia. «We have seen two types of injuries: those affected by the crowd and those, 174 people, injured by a gunshot. We are not talking about wandering bullets: many wounds are in the lower limbs, to block those who run, or to the body, with direct and intentional blows ».
According to Di Carlo, the management of the GHF centers itself seems designed to generate chaos and vulnerability: «In a context of conclato nutritional crisiswith the hungry population, there are international standards to manage the crowd and guarantee safety and dignity. Here we see the opposite: armed guards who shoot, distribution bound to military objectives, a terrible exploitation of aid ».
Stefano Di Carlo
Numbers that denounce intentionality
MSF’s medical analysis is unequivocal: At 11% of the patients of Al-Mawasi with gun wounds, head and neck were hit, at 19% chest, abdomen and back. In Khan Youunis, the wounds hit the lower limbs more often, but always in a targeted way. “This leads us to talk about orchestrated killings,” says Carlo. In addition to the firearm shots, there are 196 people injured in the crowd or attacked by others to rob them of the food just obtained. Among them, a 5 -year -old boy with head injury and a woman who died from asphyxiation.
From UN control to militarization
Until May, the distribution of aid was coordinated by the United Nations and managed by independent organizations. Then, the forced passage to GHF: four centers, all under full Israeli military control and manned by US contractors. Di Carlo is clear: “It would be enough to unlock the entrance of aid by land, let them manage to humanitarian organizations under the UN aegida and most of the chaos would decrease. But Israel blocks aids to the border and this feeds pressure, despair and violence ».
A genocide under everyone’s eyes
The director of MSF Italia does not use minor terms: «We are faced with what many call a genocide, and we also call it such. Attacks on civilians, destruction of infrastructure, affected hospitals, obstacles to the migration of humanitarian assistance. The international community remains shy, if not indifferent. But if states do not defend humanitarian law, no one will gradually respect him anymore».
The concern is that this dynamic becomes a precedent: «We risk a future in which the humanitarian action will be less and less relevant, because it will no longer have space to operate. And this does not only concern Gaza, but every crisis to come ».
The appeal: dismantle the GHF
MSF asks that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution system is dismantled immediately, that Italy – and in particular the foreign minister Antonio Tajani – pressure on Israel, and that the United States and private donors suspend any political and financial support for GHF. “The right to receive help in conditions of safety and dignity cannot be negotiated“, Di Carlo says.
Among the testimonies collected, that of an MSF medical coordinator remains impressed: «I would never have imagined to find myself in such a situation: to take care of patients affected directly while trying to get food. We started seeing people who arrive death. Very young. Without documents. Without family members ». Or, again, the voice of Ahmed, who summarizes the madness of what is happening: “Anyone who tells you that they are humanitarian aid, this is not. We should go get food for children and die»?
If the international community continues to look elsewhere, those bread and flour counters will remain workshops of cruelty. “The most elementary right – that of feeding – today is paid with life”, concludes Di Carlo. “Every second of inertia feeds a silent genocide, written with the bullets on the bodies of the most vulnerable».
